Whatever I have been reading lately, drives me to the conclusion that traditional media need more stories if they want to keep their readers. Besides, I am convinced that journalists and bloggers can work hand in hand to tell the general public what needs to be told.
Sometimes things can be published only on the internet. However, that does not always mean that journalists are not doing their job. Sometimes the situation is such that they simply can't do what they should be doing: investigate things that those in power would like to keep hidden. Even if they try, their stories won't get published. In such cases, bloggers can help journalists. Similarly, bloggers can be an excellent source of information for journalists. In turn journalists can help publicize bloggers and their topics, so that they can reach wider audience. Thus, I do not think that bloggers are a threat to conventional journalism. Rather, they complete each other.
That doesn't mean that journalists and traditional media should't re-think their position. I am convinced that their key advantage are stories written with the aid of novelistic techniques: about people around us, life we are living, and especially things we should care about. These stories have a beginning, middle and end, a character who is the hero of the story, scenes and dialogue. Evertyhing that makes the reader keep on reading it.
Internet helps us focus on things they are most interested in. But we need more. We need to learn about things that we are not otherwise interested in. How would have the American society developed, had not the media told it the stories about the injustice the African Americans experienced in Deep South in the 1950s? If the Americans had read only about things they were interested in, they wouldn't have known about segregation in schools and elsewehere and things wouldn't change for the better.
If we read on internet only what we want to know, we miss things we should know. And these are the things that traditional media (usually) provide us.
The media should rethink the form in which they present the content, and the platforom (paper, internet). However, the content (and I don't mean boring political articles about this parliament body meeting or that government press conference) should remain the same: that is things the public should know and care about.
There is a question circulating among media analyists: should newspapers dumb up or down to survive? My answer is up, of course. Newspapers should carry well researched stories written in an attractive and readable way, and these stories should help to understand, not judge.
What do you think?
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2 comments:
OK, this is theory, let's see what the situation in Slovenia is.
Market with 2 mill (1% max would potentially read quality print), stuff, print and distribution costs at eu level ..., no wonder here is no daily (ex. Finance) with publisher as (main) owner.
Therefore I see no place here for quality print; the generation in coming will need and read FT, FAZ, NYT ... as quality print with stories they need, cause they have no language problems.
Well, yes, but it would still be nice if we had better newspapers in Slovene, too, wouldn't it? With lots of well-written stories...
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